Speak & Spell

• Track Listing

Standard single disc edition. Digitally remastered edition. Speak & Spell is the debut studio album by the English electronic band Depeche Mode, released in October 1981 by Mute Records. The album peaked at #10 in the UK Albums Chart. This is the band's only album with Vince Clarke, who wrote most of the songs for the band, before departing to form Yazoo and later Erasure. The album is significantly lighter in tone and melody than their later work, a direction which can largely be attributed to Clarke's writing. After he left, Martin Gore took over songwriting duties, writing almost all of the band's material. Later albums written by him would explore darker subjects and melodies. The album title alludes to the then-popular Speak & Spell electronic toy.